In the UK, you can now buy Easter-themed chocolate dinosaurs at both Aldi and Marks & Spencer source

Metahub posted a list of the best and worst dinosaurs in Jurassic World Alive source

The dinosaur of the day: Nodosaurus

Ankylosaur that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now North America

Herbivorous

Estimated to be about 13 to 20 ft (4 to 6 m) long

Had bony plates on the top of its body, and may have had spikes on the side of its body

Bony plates were like bands, alternating between narrow and wide bands over the ribs

The wider bands were also covered in bony knobs

Had a short neck and a long, stiff tail (no club)

Had a small, narrow head, pointed snout, small teeth, and powerful jaws

Had five toes on each foot

Had powerful forelimbs

Named in 1889 by Othniel Charles Marsh (very brief description)

Richard Swan Lull gave a more detailed description in 1921

Lull also described flat scutes, spines, and plates, though he did not illustrate them

Carpenter and Kirkland revisited the description in 1998

In 2015, a 4-year-old boy, Wylie Brys found what’s thought to be a Nodosaurus fossil in Mansfield, Texas. He and his father Tim were looking around behind a shopping center. At first they thought it was s turtle fossil. They reached out to Southern Methodist University and worked with them to excavate the area

Type species is Nodosaurus textilis

Name means “knobbed lizard”

Species name refers to the texture near the head (small ossifications in quadrangular form, arranged in rows. Marsh said “The external surface is perculiarly marked by a texture that appears interwoven, like a coarse cloth. This has suggested the species name.”

Nodosaurus is the type genus for the nodosaurid group

Two groups in Ankylosauria: nodosaurids and ankylosaurids

Nodosaurids are usually more primitive, and they don’t have tail clubs, and generally skulls are not as short or broad as ankylosaurids, and the skulls were not covered in scutes

Can see Nodosaurus in the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs (a.k.a. Normanpedia), illustrated by John Sibbick in 1889

Can also see Nodosaurus in the Land Before Time series (appears in the 3rd movie, as a character named Nod)

Can also see Nodosaurus in the game Jurassic World Evoution (unlock via the Hammond Foundation when you complete the Science Division’s mission on Isla Tacaño. Model is based on Borealopelta

Fun Fact:
For the tyrannosaur linneage to evolve from Moros interpidus size to T. rex size they would have needed to grow about 4 grams per generation.S

Five of those species (all but Omeisaurus maoianus) were named after the locations where they were found

Type species is Omeisaurus junghsiensis

Lots of fossils found, so may have been the most common sauropod in the Late Jurassic in China

About 66 ft (20.2 m) long and weighed 9.8 tons

The smallest species was Omeisaurus fuxiensis, at around 35 ft (11 m) long

Had a rounded body, which gave it a small surface area compared to its volume (which would help it stay warm, by reducing heat loss)

Had nostrils that faced forward

Had a long neck helped it eat foliage, could probably eat one ton of plants a day

Omeisaurus tianfuensis had one of the longest sauropod necks (30 ft, or 9.1 m). Mamenchisaurus has a longer neck

Mamenchisaurusis thought to have replaced Omeisaurus

Scientists used to think Omeisaurus was part of the Mamenchisauridae family, now it’s thought to be part of Euhelopodidae

Scientists used to think Omeisaurus had a club tail, based on the club tail fossil being found near Omeisaurus fossils, (which made it hard to figure out which family Omeisaurus belonged in), but now it’s thought to not have a club tail, because a club tail would be too heavy and throw Omeisaurus off balance

Other dinosaurs that lived at the same time and place as Omeisaurus included the sauropods Abrosaurus, Dashanpusaurus, Shunosaurus, also the stegosaur Huayangosaurus, the ornithischian Agilisaurus, and predators such as Chuandongocoelurus, Kaijiangosaurus, Gasosaurus, Leshansaurus, Xuanhanosaurus, Yangchuanosaurus

Yangchuanosaurus were big enough to be a threat to Omeisaurus

Can see Omeisaurus at the Zigong Dinosaur Museum in Zigong, China, and at the Beipei Museum, near Chongqing, in China

Euhelopodidae is a family of sauropod dinosaurs, named by Alfred Sherwood Romer in 1956

Dinosaurs in this family include Euhelopus, Chiayusaurus, Omeisaurus, Tienshanosaurus

Fun fact: Some momma birds can feed their chicks without stomach acid because they have a special pouch in their esophagus called the “crop.” Dinosaurs may have also used a crop in a similar way, although it is hard to tell since soft tissue rarely fossilizes.

In our 122nd episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Thomas Hegna, Assistant Professor at Western Illinois University, who specializes in invertebrates, specifically arthropods; and Robert Johnson, Curator of the Geology Museum at WIU, and the artist who makes awesome dinosaur 3D prints look just like authentic fossils.

Episode 122 is also about Lourinhanosaurus, a theropod that lived in the Jurassic in what is now Portugal.

Species named in honor of Miguel Telles Antunes, a Portuguese paleontologist

Holotype is a partial skeleton, with vertebrae from the ribs, the right tibia and fibula, a metatarsus, and 32 associated gastroliths

Holotype was a sub-adult

About 15 ft (4.5 m) long and weighed about 350 lb (160 kg). Estimated that it would take 10 years to reach adult size, and an adult would be 26 ft or 8 m long

No real agreement on where Lourinhanosaurus belongs. At first it was thought to be part of Allosauroidea, but now some scientists think it was part of Megalosauroidea. In 2010, Benson said it was part of Sinraptoridae, and in 2012 Carrano said it was a coelurosaur

If Lourinhanosaurus is a sinraptorid, it would be the first one found outside of China

In 1993, about 100 eggs (some with embryonic bones) were found at a nearby beach, Paimogo. In 2001, they were assigned to Lourinhanosaurus

Eggs found were about 5 in (13 cm) long, and thought to be Lourinhanosaurus because they were found near the type specimen

Can see Lourinhanosaurus and the eggs at the Museu da Lourinhã

Carnivorous

First known theropod to have gastroliths, and scientists determined they weren’t swallowed accidentally when eating an herbivorous dinosaur

Gastroliths may have helped tenderize meat (carnivorous dinosaurs not great at chewing), or Lourinhanosaurus may have eaten shellfish and crustaceans and the gastroliths helped crack the shells (unclear if that’s what happened, since no skull was found)

Europe in the Jurassic had many islands, so animals may have adapted to different kinds of foods

It’s also possible that Lourinhanosaurus changed what it ate as it grew older (like how tyrannosaurs are faster and more agile and chase smaller ornithopods, and then when they get bigger and older, they go for larger dinosaurs)

As a juvenile, it’s possible Lourinhanosaurus went to beaches to eat smaller dinosaurs or eat fish and crustaceans from tidal pools (and then swallowed gastroliths to help digest them). Then as an adult, it may have started hunting larger dinosaurs for food

Fun fact: We can determine the age of dinosaurs by counting Lines of Arrested Growth (LAGs) in bones. It’s similar to counting tree rings. We infer that growth slows down just once a year from comparisons to modern animals (like crocodiles).